Light Beer
by bminor
Summary: VM movie missing scene. Piz has just ended a year-long relationship, and Wallace isn't about to let Veronica fool herself into thinking she didn't choose it. But as the two best friends talk, Wallace finds himself suggesting something he never thought he would. Rated M for language.


**A/N:** After watching the movie (numerous times), I felt like there was a step missing in between her break up with Piz and her asking Logan to stay when Keith got hurt. I don't doubt that she'd ask Logan to stay for the comfort and familiarity, but I thought she would have needed something else to make her sure enough to fall straight back into a relationship with him again after that initial night. And I thought a push from an unlikely person would probably be the missing step :)  
 **Disclaimer:** the characters are not my own, I don't make any money off of this, etc etc.

…

"Since when do you drink light beer, Fennel?" she asked, passing a dewy bottle to him where he sat on her back porch.

"Since you got back into town and started handing me a beer every time I see you." He raised his eyebrows at her as she took a seat beside him.

"Man, I can't believe you've gone soft on me," she teased, elbowing him lightly.

"Actually, that's what I'm trying to avoid. Chubby basketball coach? Not a good look," he elbowed back. She chuckled softly. "No witty comeback, Mars?"

"Sorry, I guess I'm just off my game," she smiled half-heartedly.

"Anything you wanna talk about?" he asked, already sure he had a pretty good idea of what was going on in her head. Well, as much as he ever could with Veronica.

"Not really, but I guess he's going to tell you anyway, so I may as well make the most of best friend bonding time," she sighed, then took a deep breath to steady herself for the conversation she knew was coming. "Piz and I broke up."

"Veronica!" he sighed loudly. "Sometimes I really don't get what goes on in your head. Why would you do that?" Wallace was usually able to restrain himself from saying how he really felt where Logan was involved, but her return to Neptune to help Logan had made Wallace nervous and put him on edge.

Veronica stared at him, open-mouthed for a few seconds before she recovered from the slight shock and muttered "I didn't do anything, it wasn't _my_ choice."

"We both know that's not true."

"What are you talking about?" she said, voice raised in defence. "Piz broke up with _me_. At no point did I ask for this, he was the one who apparently couldn't wait a few extra days," she threw back at him.

Wallace took a breath, recognising the warning signs that usually came right before Veronica chose to shut down and put an end to any kind of emotional vulnerability. "I'm sorry, V. I didn't mean it like that," he said quietly.

He sensed her tense shoulders drop a little, before she mumbled "then what did you mean?"

"Before I say this, you need to remember that you've been my friend for a long time, and you should know by now that I just want you to be happy. But Veronica, if you take a second to be honest with yourself, you know that you've made plenty of choices since you arrived which don't exactly scream that you want to be with Piz. Like how you're not on a plane to New York right now. And he's not stupid. I've been his friend for over ten years, too, and I don't like to see him getting messed around."

"First of all, I'm not messing him around. I'd say that a solid year-long relationship should earn me the benefit of the doubt that I'm in for the long haul. Second of all? I'm not on a plane to New York right now, because a friend has been accused of murder and this state has the death penalty. If I have the ability to stop that from happening, do you seriously expect me to just go back to New York and go have tea with his parents like everything is fine?"

"It's not just a friend though, is it? It's Logan. He's always had this control over you. After nine years apart I was kinda hoping you would have figured out how to say no to him, but I guess not. Damn, Veronica, it's really hard to watch you sabotage yourself again after all this time-"

"-Wallace, you don't know what you're talking about." Her jaw fell into a familiar clench.

"Don't I? Because I didn't watch him make you miserable for two and a half years? I didn't see how much happier you were with Piz? And I haven't watched a relationship fall apart in three days, just because Logan is back in the picture?"

"ENOUGH! That's enough, Wallace. I know you've never been Logan's biggest fan, and I'm not saying he was a perfect person when we were together, but the way you talk about him… he's not the demon you make him out to be, and he's definitely not a murderer."

"So he's not a murderer. Does that mean he should get to be in your life again? That's kinda a low bar. I've watched my best friend crumble too many times because of him, and I really don't wanna watch it again!" he barked, as a little beer splashed out of his bottle and onto the patio.

"Wallace Fennel, I love you. I know you're just trying to look out for me, but honestly I think you're giving me too much credit." Her voice became quieter, her attempts to stay calm evident in the fact that she wasn't shouting back at him.

"What's that supposed to mean?" he snapped, a confused expression crossing his face.

"It's hard to explain," she mumbled. She started picking nervously at the soggy label on the bottle in her hands, unable to bring herself to make eye contact with her best friend.

Noticing her uncharacteristic calm, and the noticeable change in her mood, he took a breath and said gently, "I've got nowhere to be."

She turned her head sideways to him, to cautiously look him in the eye. In his eyes she saw genuine concern – a look that was so familiar to her – and a look that pleaded with her to help him understand. Taking a deep breath she started to explain.

"I'm not the same person I was nine years ago. I know that might be difficult to believe, but I promise you I'm not. At the end of our year at Hearst I got a pretty big wake-up call about who I was becoming. My dad lost that sheriff's election because of me. He gave up so much when Lilly died because he wanted the truth, and then he finally had an opportunity to get back some semblance of a life for himself and he chose to give it all up. Again. If he hadn't I probably would have been arrested, Wallace. I literally would have gone to jail."

"What did you do that was so bad?" he asked, softly.

"It was my investigation into The Castle. The details aren't all that important. If it hadn't been that case it probably would have been another one soon after, because I had no intention of following due process if it meant I had to be patient. Never asked for help when I should have, never trusted the people who had my back, refused to stop digging even when the information wasn't mine to have…I mean, how long do you want the list? Let's just wrap it up in a neat little bow and say I had my fair share of flaws." The blunt honesty once again left her with the inability to meet his gaze.

"We've all got flaws, Veronica. That doesn't change what Logan did to you. You can't explain away how he treated you." He was trying his best to stay calm so she wouldn't shut down completely, but he wouldn't let her paint over everything she went through with Logan.

"I'm not trying to! I'm not excusing the shitty things he did. I'm just saying that I can't explain away the shitty things I did, either. He wasn't always the greatest boyfriend, but I definitely wasn't always the greatest girlfriend, and I didn't make life particularly happy for him either."

"But that's exactly my point, V. This is what I just don't get with y'all, how you both keep going back to the same old misery," he responded. His voice trailed off a little as anger was replaced by despondency.

"It's not misery. I mean… it's complicated. I know that if I try to explain it, it'll probably sound like I'm delusional or something, but I swear to you that I know what I'm doing when it comes to this. Of all the relationships in my life, weirdly, this is the one I kinda understand best."

"So try to help me understand."

"Logan and I… it's just different. I'm not pretending that I've always understood what we had – especially when we went from mortal enemies to making out – but we've always just had something that neither of us were able to ignore. We pretended we could so many times, Wallace. We tried to dismiss whatever it was, or distract ourselves with other relationships. But it never went away, and all it ever needed was for something really bad to happen and then he was the only person I wanted comforting me." She wasn't used to being this open with Wallace about the finer details of her relationship with Logan, and her face flushed in mild embarrassment.

"No offense, but that's not exactly the healthiest of relationships. You can't build a life with someone just because they comfort you when things get fucked up. Especially when they're the one fucking it up some of the time."

"I know that," she muttered, irritated. "But that's why we didn't work back then. We were kids, Wallace! Just two fucking kids, working through unfair amounts of bullshit that neither of us had any idea how to deal with as individual people, let alone as a couple trying to deal with twice the bullshit!" she shouted. He looked away, trying to process her quick descent into anger. He had experienced it before and knew it was best not to interrupt, so he kept quiet, sensing there was more to come.

At his lack of response, she took a deep breath, a sip of her beer, and then tried to carry on with her calm better intact.

"When both people have baggage – real life, adult style baggage - you can't hide behind the pretence of a normal relationship. When you've both got shit to deal with it becomes really obvious when you're not dealing with it. You can't just cling onto the other person's normality and pray that you can keep your issues smothered."

"So all that time with Piz, and all he was to you was a way to avoid your issues?" Wallace was barely suppressing his frustration.

"No Wallace, you know that's not what I'm saying. But you asked me to try to explain the situation with Logan, so I'm trying. But you have to stop being so defensive on Piz's behalf. You know I loved him."

"Loved - so it's past tense already? You only broke up a few hours ago," he sneered.

Veronica sighed, willing herself to find her last ounce of patience instead of shouting at Wallace to just leave.

"If you want to understand, you _have_ to work with me." At Wallace's silence, she continued.

"Logan's baggage and my baggage… they weren't a good match, and they made us both do stupid things we shouldn't have done. We each played our part in creating unnecessary amounts of misery. But you know me, and I wouldn't have been with him in the first place if we hadn't also been fiercely in love with each other. Like, so intensely in love that you feel a magnetic pull back to them." The words came out urgently, raw and unrehearsed.

"During our first year at Hearst when we broke up, I would sit in class and have no idea what the professor was saying because I was focussing all my attention on not thinking about how my hands were tingling because I missed him so much. Honestly, I felt like I was losing my mind, like I was going through physical withdrawal from him. Even during our second break up when I couldn't get the image of him and Maddison out of my mind, it was him who I wanted to comfort me and yet I couldn't be anywhere near him." She paused, her face even more flushed after speaking so frankly about the extent of her vulnerability, and the depth of her feeling for Logan.

Wallace looked at her, mouth slightly agape, with no idea what to say. She summoned all the courage she could to look Wallace dead in the eye and finished her explanation. "You know, we were just kids, and we were dealing with too much bullshit at the time to find a way to be together. But that doesn't mean that we didn't also love each other – _deeply_ \- despite it all."

After what seemed like a long pause, Wallace mumbled, "Damn." He let out a long, audible sigh and draped his arm around her shoulder.

"I never knew you felt like that. You never told me," he stated, plainly.

"Yeah, I know. Add it to the list of flaws, I guess," she smiled, weakly. He squeezed her shoulder a little, in response. She sensed there was something he wasn't saying.

"Say it," she commanded. At his uncertainty, she poked him in the ribs and said "Wallace, I just laid my heart out on a platter for you, so spit it out."

"Okay, okay!" At the poke in his ribs he jerked away from her, removing his arm from her shoulder. He suspected that maybe a little distance would be better to ask his question, anyway.

"Well… I was just wondering… do you still feel it? The magnetic pull to him?" he asked tentatively.

She took a moment to consider the question, genuinely thinking about her answer and trying not to just tell him what she knew he wanted to hear.

"Well I guess I wouldn't still be here if I didn't," she admitted, taking another sip of beer. "I think you were right before – Piz may have broken up with me, but I made my decisions knowing what might happen."

Veronica was still recognisably Veronica, even after going to a couple of fancy colleges since leaving Hearst, but it still threw Wallace how much better she was at admitting her flaws than the girl had known in Neptune.

"But you guys have been solid this past year. Even if you felt a pull to Logan, I don't get why it would be so easy for you to take the risk of staying here if you knew it might wreck things with Piz?" he asked, no anger in his voice but clearly still reacting in defence of his friend.

"It wasn't _easy_. I just… I couldn't leave Neptune knowing that it didn't matter which lawyer I picked for Logan, because nobody would work as hard as me to make sure he didn't end up in jail. Or worse," she exhaled raggedly, the last two words almost catching in her throat as she tried not to think about the horrific outcome that was still a potential reality.

"Because you love him?" he asked.

"Because I'm the only person who knows Logan well enough to know that he isn't guilty, and I knew it before I found any evidence of it. I'm the only one who believes he's not the person he's made out to be in the news reports," she explained, adamantly.

Wallace took a second before repeating the question, quietly.

"Yeah… but you do love him?"

It was clear to her that it was a question and not an accusation.

"I don't know," she mumbled. She barely got the words out before Wallace shot her a disbelieving ' _yeah, right'_ look.

"Wallace, I'm not lying to you! I honestly don't know how I feel about him."

"For real, Veronica? I'm not sure what else you'd call it. The way you talked about him, how you felt about him… doesn't seem like that's the type of thing that goes away."

"No, but neither does the bullshit," she threw back, disillusionment and weariness evident in her tone.

He took a moment to consider his words carefully. "You're not kids anymore. If there's a chance that it could work… maybe it'd be crazy not to take the risk."

They looked each other in the eyes, this time with her mouth agape. She burst into an incredulous laugh.

"What?" he asked, smiling.

"I just never thought this conversation would turn into you trying to convince me to be with Logan," she grinned.

"Whoa, hold up, I'm not going that far. I still don't like him, and I definitely don't think he deserves you. But it's probably better to figure out whether there's anything between you so you don't end up breaking the next Piz's heart… the next time you get pulled back to Logan," he stated, trying his best not to sound accusatory.

"Yeah… I guess you're right." She started picking at the label again, nervously digging at the wet paper until it came off in sodden crumples under her nail.

"So what are you going to do about it?"

"Right now, all I can focus on is the case. I can't get distracted. The sheriff is a piece of shit and he's made it very clear that he doesn't care whether Logan is guilty or not – he's gunning for him. I can't risk slipping up and Logan ending up…" She paused, fighting back the lump that had rapidly formed in her throat. She looked away as she fought against the hot feeling burning in her eyes. She had already been as vulnerable as she wanted to be today, and crying in front of Wallace was not something she intended doing.

Wallace slipped his arm around her shoulder again, this time pulling her into a tighter hug, and simply murmured, "I know," into her ear. Of all the reasons she loved her best friend, the times when Wallace decided to let her off the hook instead of pushing were the moments she was most grateful for him.

She managed to pull herself together and took a large swig of her bottle, finishing off the last of the foam in the bottom.

"Speaking of which, he's coming over tonight to talk about the case, so I should probably start preparing some papers. So…"

"I can take a hint," he grinned. "I got a hot date tonight, anyway," he crowed, pulling at his collar with faux swagger.

"Binge watching Games of Thrones?" she teased.

"I resent that implication!" he shot back, as he stood up from the patio and headed towards the back door. "I finished Games of Thrones months ago." He twisted the door handle and as he was stepping through, turned back at her to add with a grin, "it's all about Walter White these days, V."

He was almost completely through the door when Veronica called, "Wallace?" His head poked through the doorway, eyebrows raised.

"Thanks. For caring enough to give him a hard time."

He smiled. "Anytime, Ms. Mars."


End file.
